Touched by Death (36 page)

"Right. Dane? I have to ask. Who said Peppe was
not in his right mind?"

He glanced over at her, in surprise. "I don't
know. I didn't need to be told. I could see it for myself. Why?"

"I'm just trying to sort out the behavior that's
all. And what about Tasha?"

"When I first met her, she was fairly happy and
seemed like any other eager mother-to-be. At the end? No. She wasn't
normal at the end. And there's no way you can blame that on my brother."

"I'm not trying to," she said gently. "I'm
trying to understand. Sort through the possibilities."

He parked and turned off the engine. Stephen parked
beside them.

Dane gave her a hard look. "This is my brother.
Remember that when you look at those possibilities."

D
ane walked past the small picket fence he'd once
considered cute. Not any longer. Now it looked run down and unloved.
Everything in his life had taken on a dark tinge. He headed to the kitchen
door and didn't wait for the others to follow. They would.

He could already hear Meg running behind him and the
vehicle doors opening and closing as the others hopped out to catch
up.

He strode through the kitchen. There was no sign of
John. He headed for the master bedroom and found it undisturbed from
the day he'd cleaned it out. John hadn't moved back in. Frowning, he
made a quick loop through the rest of the house.

"He's not here."

The others stood in the middle of the kitchen, faces
blank.

Dane shrugged. "He could be anywhere. Let's check
the other cabins. There are three of them. I'll check mine first."
He bolted out the door and ran to his place.

Flinging open the door, he strode into the small cabin.
Nothing had been disturbed. At least at first glance that appeared to
be the case. He walked through the space and headed back out to the
front. Everyone stood on the small porch or just inside the door, waiting
for his verdict.

"Empty."

He led the way to Emile's cabin. They passed several
outbuildings. Old sheds, storage rooms and working buildings from years
past when this place had been a thriving farm. They checked every one.

No sign of him. Nothing.

Lots of rusted equipment and wooden boxes filled the
spaces, but mostly they were full of junk.

Arriving at a clearing, Dane pointed out Emile's cabin,
Dane said, "I don't know if anyone's been in here since Emile died."

"Not likely, considering there'd only been John
and Peppe left." Bruce strode beside him. "He had enough on
his plate without worrying about minor things like that."

Dane shot him a sideways look. "Still think he
could have done what you think he might have done."

Bruce was quick to answer. "Yes."

"Kidnapping doesn't fit John's pattern. Jade
wasn't his girlfriend. She's mine. She's not pregnant as far as I know."

Trying to maintain the pace as Dane's long legs ate
up the distance, Bruce explained, "I wasn't thinking of that pattern
as much as it could possibly be his way to get rid of a problem in his
life. Once something starts to go wrong he's faced with failure. Rather
than accepting that a relationship or a business, or his plans have
come to an end, it sounds like he's getting rid of the cause for his
failure – blaming something of someone else, so to speak. And removing
it from his life so he doesn't have to face it."

"Failure?" Dane shook his head. "That's
a bit harsh."

"There's no way of knowing. Killers don't think
like we do. Although, most of the time these people have had a tough
upbringing – child abuse that sort of thing. According to you –
you two were always close. You had a good childhood."

"More or less."

"So what could have gone wrong for John? What
could have started him on this path?"

Dane looked at him in confusion, very conscious of
the others listening in with interest. "Wrong?" He stopped
and reared back slightly. "Nothing was wrong. Unless you mean our
parents' deaths? My dad passed when I was an infant, John's mom died
when he was in kindergarten. Our parents married several years later.
We were all close until they died on a European holiday in John's second-to-last
year of high school."

Bruce was quiet for a moment. "Their deaths could
have initially triggered his actions." Taking a deep breath, he
added, "And it's quite possible being forced to confront death
on a large scale like the mass grave may have triggered his behavior
again. Made him reassess where he was in life and what he really wanted?"

Dane shot him a look of disbelief, not wanting to
consider the possibility. He turned and pointed to a cabin showing in
the distance. "That's Emile's."

Their pace picked up. At the stairs, the others stopped
and waited for Dane. He unlatched the door, wrinkled up his nose and
flung the door wide open. "God, it's stale in here."

"Not being cleaned and aired out will do that."

"I suppose." Dane headed in. The cabin had
an identical layout to his – was maybe a little larger. Clothes were
tossed onto the backs of the furniture, shoes forgotten on the floor.

Dane shook his head and strode into the bedroom.

Empty.
But then, what had they expected. It's not like Jade
was going to be sitting there, waiting for them.

"It's empty. There's only Peppe's place left."
Dane pointed toward the heaviest treed area of the property.

"Let's check it fast, then...hell, I don't know
what we'll do after that."

"One thing at a time." Bruce turned to survey
the treed acreage. "Talk about privacy. Dane, where
is
Peppe's place? I can't see anything."

He pointed. "Through those trees. Peppe's place
is the original homestead. Peppe built the main house for his wife."
Dane raced off in that direction while still explaining, a sense of
urgency dogging his heels.

The cabin was set in amongst the trees. Older, more
worn, the front door hung crooked...and stood open. "The cabin
should be burned because of the state it's in." Bruce backed away,
his hand wafting the air in front of his face. "God, that is rank."

"No kidding."

Dane glanced over to see Stephen and Wilson who held
their noses as they tried to breathe. A quick glance at Meg showed a
similar reaction. He climbed the few stairs and entered. The others
stayed well back.

The cabin looked the same as he remembered from his
last visit. In fact, it looked exactly the same. The same clothes and
brown stains on the floor. The smell could have been just the decomposing
food though. He bent and peered closer at the stains on the floor. They
were old. He kicked them with his boots. Very old.

He searched the small cabin, his mind wanting to panic.
A part of him would be happy to accept all kinds of theories if they
led to finding Jade. Instead they'd hit a dead end. "It's empty
too."

"Really? I thought for sure we'd find Jade here,
somewhere." Meg peered into the room behind him.

Stephen shook his head. "Why here? She could
be anywhere."

"I hope not. It's going to be impossible to find
her then." Bruce backed up several paces to stare around the side
of the house, as if looking for an outbuilding.

Dane watched him and finally something went 'click.'

"Goddamn it." Dane said suddenly. Something
he should have thought of earlier fell into place. He hopped off the
porch and headed around the corner of the house. The others followed.
The old outhouse stood in the back, the door open.

"'What?" The others stared at him, following
blindly, confusion on their faces. "Dane, what are you doing?"

"There should be a root cellar here someplace."
He shook his head at his own stupidity as he circled the small building.
"John mentioned something about Peppe having done a lot of renovations
to this old place. I remember asking to see it when I first arrived,
but John said it wasn't his place. Said he was too busy fixing up his
store. Another place he wouldn't show me."

"What's that about John's business?" Bruce
asked loud enough that everyone trying to catch up, could hear.

Dane spun around to explain. "He was working
from home, then decided a storefront in town would be better. He leased
a place before the earthquake and lost everything. Then last week he
told me, everything was gone. He was bankrupt and couldn't bear to tell
Tasha." The root cellar should be here somewhere. It's the only
thing that made sense.

"Dane – is there a building left standing?"
Bruce called out, his sharp voice finally penetrating Dane's focus.

"Not much of one. I finally drove by there today
but I couldn't see that he'd done anything. I kept asking to see it,
offering to help. I'm in the construction business after all,"
Dane said in confusion, "Only he kept saying he was working on
it and that it wasn't ready to show me yet."

"As in he kept giving you an excuse to keep you
away?" Bruce's sharp voice made Dane stop and turn to face them.

"Yes, I guess so…but why?"

"More failure?"

"Dane, where is this building? Might he have
stashed Jade in it?"

"It's not structurally sound. Half of one side
is cracked and caved in. I didn't stop to look beyond that. There's
been so much going on."

"Is there a downstairs? Or a part of the structure
that is safe? A place where he might keep her?"

Dane's face shut down. "I don't know." He
stopped in front of a blue tarp. "This has to be what I want."
He leaned down to pull back the tarp. "I figured there had to be
an old root cellar down here." An old rusted padlock secured the
large wooden doors closed.

"Someone, give me a hand with this." He
looked around for something to smash it with and spied a large rock.

Bruce leaned down and yanked on the lock. "This
sucker isn't moving."

"Hell, yes it is. Move back." Dane crashed
the heavy rock down on it.

The padlock held but the old wood splintered in every
direction.

Jade tried for the thousandth time to get her foot
free of the manacle. Her blood ran warm down her bare foot. She just
couldn't get her heel through the small hole. Desperate for escape,
she considered breaking her bones if that would do the job – then
discarded that idea. She studied the pin mechanism and the new lock
that held the manacle closed. She'd studied the ones on the women's
ankles but not to figure out how to open them. Neither did she have
any tools or rocks available to do the job.

She collapsed back on the ground. Tears once again
welled up in her eyes. She wiped them away. She couldn't function if
she let her fear take over. It took anger to beat the fear into the
ground. And anger had been a little scarce recently.

Then she thought she heard something above.

Her heart stopped.
Friend or foe?
Then again, what friend would know where to
look? It had to be her captor.

Panic rose. She pounded it down again.
Think damn it. You've got a brain. Use it
.

A heavy thud above her head had her studying the ceiling.
Her muscles tensed. She could hardly breathe.

"Oh God, please. Someone help me," she whispered
as she heard noises at the back of the building. "Please let this
be someone looking for me."

She closed her eyes and prayed.

Meg stepped back. "You guys can go look. I'm
staying up here. In the sunshine where the world doesn't look so dark
and creepy."

"That works." Bruce pulled the wood fragments
apart and tossed them out of the way to reveal old cement stairs, going
down under Peppe's cabin.

Dane led the way. "Jade are you here?"

Silence. Stretching out a hand, he was amazed to find
a light switch. The small room flooded with opaque light from a single
bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the room.

"Holy shit!"

The other men clambered down the stairs behind him
and gasped in shock.

Bruce, his voice grim and sad, said, "Well, I
guess we know what happened to those women now."

The small room had a bed with blankets, a small dresser
with an old-fashioned pitcher and bowl for water. There were a few blankets
and clothing of some kind tossed on the bed. The other corner of the
room had a bucket with a toilet seat resting on top. The structural
support sitting in the middle of the room was decorated with the one
thing that made Dane's blood run cold.

Chains.
Chains with manacles on the end, open and loose, hung
down from the nails.

"Oh, my God. So it
was
Peppe that kidnapped the women? Holy shit."

Dane's stomach sank and his mind roiled. "
This
is fucking
nuts."

"I've been telling you that man. This is beyond
crazy. We've got an old man kidnapping, abusing, killing young women,
and I'm scared to think of how many he took, or how long he kept them.
Then he tossed their bodies in the mass grave because...what...it was
convenient?"

Bruce, his voice haunted by what was in front of him,
said, "Depending on how many women, he might have had several graves.
Maybe the earthquake unearthed one? Maybe the mass grave was accidentally
put on top? Or maybe he had to move the bodies from their original resting
place because it opened with the earthquake and the mass grave was a
perfect opportunity. I don't think Peppe's health or strength is what
it used to be. The quake and mass grave would have provided an easy
answer. Particularly if he still had one prisoner locked in here at
the time of the quake."

Bruce walked to the dresser and using a towel tossed
on top, he opened the first drawer then the second. "We need to
get the police out here. There are purses, pictures, clothing even jewelry.
Maybe these things can help identify his victims."